“Hopefully, he is not as stupid as he seems, nor as mafialike as his background makes him appear.” Those were the words of Fidel Castro last week about none other than President Bush, reported in Friday’s Des Moines Register in the article “Castro hopes for smart Bush.”How does he get off saying such a thing? The United States is undoubtedly the ultimate power in the world today, and within seconds, we could nuke Cuba back to the Stone Age. Hell, we could nuke them back to the Precambrian.So, how can he say that? Simple. He has survived through 10 presidencies, and he’ll probably make it through this one. He doesn’t live in fear of the United States or any country attacking him. Yet our great country, the most powerful in the world, is afraid of some rogue state striking us with a nuclear missile?Something’s wrong here. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about Bush.We have a good reason to be afraid of other countries attacking us — though not with missiles.However, I do have to question our motivation to construct an illegal missile defense system. We still have a treaty — the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia that prohibits construction of such a system. But worse than that, we don’t have working technology for it anyway. But like Reagan, Clinton and Bush the elder, Dubya is willing to violate a treaty and throw up a non-working system to protect us from missile attack.Well, here’s where the disagreement between myself and the President comes in. In fact, it’s not so much a disagreement as it is a difference of knowledge, because I have the ultimate missile defense system in mind.It is simple, scientifically feasible, and will not even violate the ABM treaty. It’s called not pissing other countries off.The irony, of course, is that by constructing our system, we will be violating that single axiom of ultimate missile defense. Building the system will clearly infuriate Russia, who has promised to back out of every arms agreement they’ve ever made with the United States if we continue with our plans, and it has also frustrated our Canadian and European allies.Granted, we made the Russians mad when we expanded NATO, which is basically an archaic collective security group which we created to protect ourselves from those same Russians. Speaking of NATO, they are against it, too. Yet the real problem is that our technology isn’t even functional, at even the most optimal conditions.So, we’ll be offending our allies; we can do that periodically. We have lots of nuclear weapons.Most troubling is that the only nations who aren’t protesting our missile defense system are the nations that we see posing a threat to us. Saddam Hussein has nothing bad to say about the national missile defense system. In fact, he’s probably in one of his bunkers, rolling on the floor with laughter.Castro isn’t worried either. He knows nothing’s going to change our view of Cuba until he dies, and he has no such plans. Basically, looking at the scorecard, we will be offending Western Europe, Russia, China, and Canada. On the plus side, we will be not offending Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea or Cuba. Whew. Those rogues probably appreciate it now since they don’t have to waste money developing missile technologies.It’s not surprising, either. Just a glance at world history tells us what happens when countries try to create isolationist defense systems. France built a giant wall, known as the Maginot line, along their German border between World War I and World War II. Their allies had no confidence in them since France made great efforts to protect themselves, and accordingly would not benefit from any collective security alliances. Then, in the ultimate irony, the Germans just went around it anyway.Basically, we’ll be looking at the same thing. The fact is if you’re an Iraqi and want to commit terrorist acts, you don’t waste your time with missiles anyway. Missiles are too expensive. Smuggling a few canisters of anthrax into the country in a diplomatic pouch and then releasing them in a subway, on the other hand, is cheap, efficient and to the point. I feel bad for Bush. His party is pushing the Missile Defense System, and Clinton passed the buck on this one, forcing him to make the decision. No matter what choice he makes, it will be the wrong one, through no fault of his own. But even if you do want a National Missile Defense, I’ve got a great idea. Make it work before you build it. I think I read that somewhere.This is alchemy of the modern age, at the taxpayer’s expense. It needs to stop. All it will defend us against is a budget surplus.Tim Kearns is a junior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.